Another Go
by The Sneaky Fox
Summary: Post DS3. Isaac has returned home and managed to find his way back to Ellie. After making up for lost time, they figure out what to do next in the still-healing Sol System. One-shot.


A/N: Hey all. I know, of course, that this isn't a new chapter for my ME stuff, but I've decided to give Dead Space a whirl. It's probably my favourite fandom outside of ME, and I am, as always, excited at the prospect of possible romance opportunities. This is a short, fluffy piece I'm testing the waters with, and using it as an excuse to put off my other current stories - hope you all enjoy!

* * *

"You've got grey hairs on your chest," Ellie murmured, circling a finger around one of his nipples. She shifted closer to him, molding her curved form to his body under the blankets.

"Do I?" Isaac said sleepily, stroking her hair. It was deep into the night, but neither of them wanted to go to bed just yet. Well, go to sleep, anyway. They'd been to bed already. A few times.

"Just two from what I can see," she replied, her breath blowing softly on his skin. She pulled gently on one, inspecting the curly, short hairs congregated on his chest. "But I don't remember them being there last time we—" She cut herself off, frowning suddenly.

He touched her cheek. "It's okay," he whispered. "You can talk about it."

She sighed, resting her chin on his collarbone. "I know. I just don't want to ruin the moment."

He chuckled at that. "You're lying naked on top of me, Ellie. There isn't much you can do to ruin the moment."

She laughed. "Well, aren't you easy to please?"

"Maybe, but there aren't a lot of things in the world better than breasts," he informed her. "There's no law of diminishing return on sex. The fact that you've got unlimited access to them doesn't make them any less wonderful."

She snorted into his chest, her shoulders shaking. He watched her giggle, smiling faintly. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard her laugh, and it was soothing to hear.

Ellie wiped her eyes a moment later, shaking her head. "Whew," she hummed, blowing out a breath. "I missed this. I missed you."

"I never left," he reminded her softly, knowing she was talking about before she'd left for Uxor or Tau. Before Norton.

"You _were_ leaving," she murmured. "You were fading. When I—" Ellie swallowed. "When I went to your apartment, after... after I got back, I found your things in trash bags outside of the building. The landlord asked me for the last three months of your rent." She looked at him, her eyes hard. "You were slipping away. And when I phoned CEC to get your stuff back from your office, they told me you'd been fired."

"Ellie—"

"I didn't want to leave," she whispered. "I wanted to be with you. But I couldn't watch you destroy your life. _Our _life."

He looked away from her. As always, she was disturbingly observant. And right.

"I was a coward," he murmured. "I was scared—of everything." Her smoothed a stray hair behind her ear. "But I'm not anymore."

"I believe you," she said earnestly. "I really do." She looked like she wanted to say more, but bit her lip.

"Then what is it?"

"Norton," she said quietly. "I don't know what to do."

"About what?"

"I can't seem to—to fit him in anywhere," Ellie admitted. "Am I supposed to grieve him? Or be happy that he's gone? Do I talk to his family?" She shrugged her shoulders in a helpless gesture. "I don't know what to do, or if I should _do _anything."

"What do you want to do?" he asked. It wasn't exactly his favourite subject, but Ellie seemed oddly distraught about it.

"I don't know," she replied. "I—God," Ellie closed her eyes. "I only slept with the man to... to piss you off. I was angry and unhappy and—" She shook her head. "By the time I'd gotten that nonsense out of my system, I needed him for the mission. He was an asshole, I knew he was, but... I shouldn't have used him. And I think, in his own screwed up way, he loved me."

Isaac was starting to understand. "So you're feeling guilty?"

She nodded. "What am I supposed to do now? Grieve a man I didn't really care about? A man who thought I loved him? The only reason he came with us was because I asked him to. The only _reason _he died—"

"Was because he betrayed us. Ellie, he would have died on Earth if he hadn't gone with us. It isn't your fault. It isn't anyone's fault."

"But he would have had the choice to stay or go! He wouldn't have had some woman pull him along because she wanted to get back at her boyfriend and use him as a resource for a mission!" She sat up, sitting beside him and pulling at her hair. "I'm just _angry._ I feel like shit because I used him and I feel like shit for feeling like shit because he was an asshole and I feel like shit because I wanted to hurt you and yelled at you and—"

"Ellie." He grabbed one of her wrists, which was waving nervously in front of her as she spoke. "It's okay."

"No it isn't!" She said loudly. "You—I'm an awful person, and… you're still here. You still love me." Her voice tapered off at the end, and she ran a hand angrily through her hair.

His lips tugged up faintly at that. "I'm far from perfect, Ellie. And you still love me."

"No," she argued. "No. I slept with him to make you angry and the first words out of your mouth when he was gone was an apology. You were sorry because you were scared you hurt me. You cared, Isaac. And I didn't." Her shoulders slumped a little, and she played with the fabric of the blanket pooled around her waist.

"You're going to write yourself off as a bad person because of a mistake?"

"Not _a _mistake. Mistakes. Several mistakes."

"Ellie I could sit here all night and tell you all the damn mistakes I've made. Mistakes that have cost people their jobs, and sometimes their lives. Everybody's a shitty human being at some point," he added gently. "But you want to make them right. And that counts for something."

She looked at him, eyes bright. "I'm so used to giving you advice that I forgot I could use some myself." Her voice had gotten quiet, and she was curled in on herself.

"I'll take that as a compliment," he said dryly.

Ellie clapped a hand over her mouth, as if to shove the words back in. "Oh god, I didn't mean it like that—"

He laughed. "It's alright. Come here," he ordered, opening his arms. She crawled over to him and tucked herself into his side again.

"There," Isaac murmured, hugging her close. "We're two shitty people who love each other."

"You aren't shitty," she argued.

"Then neither are you."

"That isn't—"

"That's the way it works. We're either both shitty or both good. Take your pick."

"You have an odd grasp on morality," she replied.

"No, it works. Shitty people can't love good people. They're too shitty to appreciate the good. And good people can't love shitty people. They're too good to put up with it. So one of us can't be good and the other bad. It's one or the other."

She laughed. "I think that's a bit hypothetical, don't you?"

"It could be," he admitted. "But if you're as wonderful as I think you are—and I'm right—I mustn't be so bad if I love someone like you."

She smiled at him, touching his jaw. "Isaac—"

He continued on, grinning. "And since you think _I'm_ so amazing, you can't be too shabby yourself."

She snorted, falling back on the pillows. "You almost had me. Really." Ellie puffed her breath, blowing strands of hair upwards. "I really have missed you." She slid a hand down his arm, twining her fingers through his when she met his palm.

"I've missed you," he said quietly. "It was the only reason I got off that damn planet."

She wrapped her free arm around him, hugging him close. "You never told me how you escaped."

He shrugged. "It's a boring story. We woke up in a cave, walked around until we found one of the Unitologist's shuttles, and repaired it. That took nearly a month with how damaged it was, but we got it working, and flew back to Earth."

Ellie's eyes grew sombre. "You keep saying 'we'." Her sentence hung heavily above them, and he nodded tiredly.

"I know."

"Carver's... alive, then?" she asked hesitantly.

"No. He... no. He stayed behind. He kept going long enough to help me fix the shuttle, but... he wanted to be with his family as badly as I did."

"Oh," she said softly, looking slightly dazed. "I... shouldn't really be surprised, I suppose; he didn't take Dylan's death well." Ellie sighed. "I'm going to miss him, though. He was a bastard, but a good friend."

"Yeah," he murmured back. There wasn't much else to say. One of his final conversations with Carver rang in his mind, and he wondered, briefly, where the man was now-if, as Carver had feared, he really was in Hell for the mistakes he had made. If, maybe, they were all going to Hell for their mistakes. Or if there even _was _a Hell.

"So what do we do now?" Ellie asked, disrupting his morbid philosophical wonderings.

"Whatever we want, I guess. EarthGov will take a while to get started back up, so we should be safe for now. And now that the Marker signal is gone, Unitology will fade away." He looked at her. "I think we're finally in the clear. We may still have to use fake IDs for the time being, but I think… I think we're safe."

She smiled, smoothing a thumb over his mouth. "And what about us?"

"What about us?"

"Are we… giving it another go?" she asked tentatively, but he could hear a hidden excitement in her words. "A new start?"

"I thought we did that already. Three times, actually," he added, looking down at their intertwined position.

"That was just for fun, Clarke," she said teasingly, grinning at him.

"If I'm your idea of a fun one night stand, then-"

"Then?"

"Then hell yes, we're giving it another shot," he said with conviction, and she snorted into her hand. "You're possibly the last woman who would entertain the idea."

"I didn't know you invited the Pity Party," she said cheekily, poking him in the side. "Or are you trying to make a new one?"

He gave her a look. "I'm a forty-seven year-old engineer suffering from dementia and grey hair. I'm not trying for pity, I'm being practical."

"Mm," she hummed. "That is very true. You are old."

He shook his head, hair mussing on the pillow. "And you're still annoying as all hell."

"Thank you," she said sincerely. Ellie relinquished her share of the covers and sat up, becoming wonderfully naked. "Now let's try for four, shall we? if you can keep up with me, old man."

"I'll do my very best," he replied, just as genuine.


End file.
